Microbial communities inhabiting 600-year-old sediments in the Inka-Coya Lake located in the Atacama Desert

Abstract. Lacustrine sediments are natural archives for the surrounding area's biogeochemical dynamics; in particular, the isolation and extreme conditions in which desert lakes are located make them ideal study models for studying perturbations in the ecosystem. We aimed to study the microbial community dynamics in Inka-Coya Lake, located in the Atacama Desert, where active geological activity and the local mining industry influence biological dynamics in this ecosystem, as suggested for macroinvertebrates and plankton communities in the lake. In this study, we aimed to characterize the microbial communities that inhabit deep lacustrine sediments and their interaction with the surrounding environment. The results show that the microbial community from lacustrine sediments contains over 70 % unclassified organisms, highlighting this ecosystem's microbial taxonomic novelty. Our results indicate that the microbial communities cluster in three distinct zones: a superficial community, an intermediate and mixed community, and a more specialized anaerobic community in the deeper sediments. The microbial composition is dominated by chemoheterotrophic bacteria strongly associated with methane metabolism. Additionally, there is statistical evidence of strong correlations between particular taxa such as Sulfurimonadaceae, Metanoregulaceae, and Ktedonobacteroceae with elements like Cu, As, Fe, Ni, and V, and magnetic properties of the surrounding environment, evidencing the strong correlation between the surrounding geochemistry and microbial life that could be disrupted by the continuous mining activity in the area. Further detailed studies of the metabolic repertoire of these communities are necessary to understand the complex dynamics between microbial life and geochemical composition in this fragile and extreme environment.